Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

I had opened about twelve boxes before I found the black Converse one. The carved wooden box was still inside. I lifted the smooth, delicate sphere from its velvet lining. The impression of the sphere remained in the velvet, dark and crushed, as if it had been there a thousand years.

The Arclight.

It had been my mother’s most valuable possession, and Marian had given it to me. Why now?

In my hand, the pale orb began to reflect the room around me until the curved surface was alive and swirling with colors. It was glowing, a pale green. I could see Lena again in my mind, and hear her. I hurt everyone I love.

The glow began to fade, and once again the Arclight was black and opaque, cold and lifeless in my hand. But I could still feel Lena. I could sense where she was, as if the Arclight was some kind of compass leading me to her. Maybe there was something to this Wayward thing, after all.

Which made no sense, because the last place I wanted to be was wherever Lena and John were. So why was I seeing them?

My mind was racing. The Great Barrier?

A place where there was no Light and no Dark? Was that possible?

There was no point trying to sleep now.

I pulled on a crumpled Atari T-shirt. I knew what I had to do.

Together or not, this was bigger than Lena and me. Maybe it was as big as the Order of Things, or Galileo realizing the Earth revolved around the sun. It didn’t matter if I didn’t want to see it. There were no coincidences. I was seeing Lena and John and Ridley for a reason.

But I had no idea what it was.

Which is why I had to go talk to Galileo herself.

As I stepped out into the darkness, I could hear Mr. Mackey’s fancy roosters starting to crow. It was 4:45, and the sun wasn’t close to coming up, but I was walking around town like it was the middle of the afternoon. I listened to the sound of my feet as I walked across the cracked sidewalk and the sticky asphalt.

Where were they going? Why was I seeing them? Why did it matter?

I heard a noise. When I turned around, Lucille cocked her head and sat down on the pavement behind me. I shook my head and kept walking. That crazy cat was going to follow me, but I didn’t mind. We were probably the only ones awake in the whole town.

But we weren’t. Gatlin’s very own Galileo was awake, too. When I turned the corner onto Marian’s street, I could see the light on in her spare room. As I got closer, I saw a second light flicker from the front porch.

“Liv.” I jogged up the steps and heard a clatter in the darkness.

“Bloody hell!” The lens of an enormous telescope swung toward my head, and I ducked. Liv grabbed the end of the lens, her messy braids swinging behind her. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” She twisted a knob, and the telescope locked back into place on the tall aluminum tripod.

“It’s not exactly sneaking when you walk up the front steps.” I tried not to stare at her pajamas—some kind of girly boxers under a T-shirt with a picture of Pluto and the caption DWARF PLANET SAYS: PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE.

“I didn’t see you.” Liv adjusted the eyepiece and stared into the telescope. “What are you doing up, anyway? Are you mental?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Let me save you some time. The answer is yes.”

“I’m not joking.”

She studied me, then picked up her red notebook and started scribbling. “I’m listening. I just have to write down a few things.”

I looked over her shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

“The sky.” She looked back into the scope and then at her selenometer. She wrote another set of numbers.

“I know that.”

“Here.” She stepped aside, motioning me closer. I looked through the lens. The sky exploded into light and stars and the dust of a galaxy that didn’t remotely resemble the Gatlin sky. “What do you see?”

“The sky. Stars. The moon. It’s pretty amazing.”